“A fertility problem,” said Chiddy. “Those larger beings are empresses of this world, their home world, and some years ago, they were becoming infertile. Vess and I found out why and fixed it for them.”
“They seemed very grateful,” said Chad.
Chiddy nodded. “They are. Even though it was more by luck than skill that we figured it out.”
The banquet was duly provided, tiny containers of various syrups and pastes, to be drunk or spread on sweet crackers or just sniffed, for all of them smelled as marvelous as they tasted. Chiddy whispered that many of them were euphorics, as well. It was, Benita thought, rather like being happily drunk. She felt jolly and joyous, with no thoughts of problems or pains, and also, Chiddy assured her, no need to worry about a possible hangover later.
When they parted from the Flibotsi with mutual expressions of regard, and while they were on their way to the next stop, Chad asked Chiddy about the fertility problem the two Pistach had solved, and after hemming and humming for a time, Chiddy agreed to tell them about it.
“The Flibotsi are trisexual, with a few breeding females, the empresses, a few more breeding males, the consorts, and many unsexed ones who do a little work but mostly just enjoy life. When I read your fairy tales of little winged people, I think of the Flibotsi. Of course, as you have seen, they are not small. Indeed they are larger than we, but they are also more fragile, since their planets are low-gravity ones.”
“I didn’t notice,” said Chad.
“The ship projected a field around each of us that prevented our doing so,” said Vess. “We weren’t staying long enough for you to acclimate, and we did not wish to run the risk of gastric upset. It would have offended our hostesses.”
Nodding agreement, Chiddy went on. “The worker Flibotsi are excellent gardeners, and they eat many types of flowers which gives each of them a lovely and quite particular scent. The filaments that grow on their heads and down their backs, their breath, indeed, even their skin smells of flowers, and as you have experienced, being in the midst of a hovering group of Flibotsi is an olfactory delight.
“We were called in because the empresses were becoming unable to produce male offspring, a certain number of whom are needed to continue the race. Vess and I asked at once if males from some of the other Flibotsi settled worlds couldn’t simply be reassigned to the home world. This would be by far the easiest way to make up the lack, but the empress told us how difficult interstellar travel is for them. It is more than mere dislike of being shut up in close quarters, it amounts almost to terror. Also, they told us, the cost is great. They must pay huge amounts to starship owners whenever they decide to establish an new colony.
“They have no ships of their own. They do not, as a matter of fact, manufacture many artifacts of any kind, which explains their lack of exchangeable currency. Their entire off-world economy is supported by their trade in botanicals and perfumes. The few artifacts they make include writing implements, of course, as poetry and song are important to them, and musical instruments, mostly stringed ones that are either bowed or plucked, plus drums and chimes. They construct many shrines, small ones, exquisitely made, and they plant gardens and groves everywhere. All this work is done by the unsexed ones, the neuters.
“Males grow up in the homes of their empress mothers, then are traded to other empresses in the general vicinity when they reach breeding age. Since their aptitudes are more or less the same as those of a registered male poodle on your world, they are pampered and well groomed, and also, for the most part, amusing, affectionate, and capable of sustained sexual activity.
“All the non-sexual eggs are parthenogenically produced as sterile copies of the empress herself. Both empress and male eggs, however, are fertilized by the male. Following mating flights, during which a supply of sperm is inserted into the empress’s vlasiput, a kind of internal purse or sac, the sperm is very slowly leaked into the oviduct, male eggs being laid at the rate of about one per two hundred sexless ones, and female empress eggs at the rate of one or two per thousand. In the recent past, the rate of male eggs, distinguishable through color and size, had fallen to a level so low that there were some mature empresses who had had no males when they were ready for their maiden flights.